As he grew older, his mental
conflicts became still more violent. The strong language in which he
described them has strangely misled all his biographers except Mr.
Southey. It has long been an ordinary practice with pious writers to
cite Bunyan as an instance of the supernatural power of divine grace to
rescue the human soul from the lowest depths of wickedness. He is called
in one book the most notorious of profligates; in another, the brand
plucked from the burning. He is designated in Mr. Ivimey's "History of
the Baptists" as the depraved Bunyan, the wicked tinker of Elstow. Mr.
Ryland, a man once of great note among the Dissenters, breaks out into
the following rhapsody: "No man of common sense and common integrity can
deny that Bunyan was a practical atheist, a worthless, contemptible
infidel, a vile rebel to God and goodness, a common profligate, a
soul-despising, a soul-murdering, a soul-damning, thoughtless wretch as
could exist on the face of the earth. Now, be astonished, O heavens, to
eternity! and wonder, O earth and hell, while time endures! Behold this
very man become a miracle of mercy, a mirror of wisdom, goodness,
holiness, truth, and love." But whoever takes the trouble to examine the
evidence, will find that the good men who wrote this had been deceived
by a phraseology which, as they had been hearing it and using it all
their lives, they ought to have understood better. There can not be a
greater mistake than to infer, from the strong expressions in which a
devout man bemoans his exceeding sinfulness, that he has led a worse
life than his neighbors.
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